


Revenant

by StainedGlassDreams



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Love, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, Post Infinity War part 2, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), buckynat - Freeform, winter widow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 18:10:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 8,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15418674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StainedGlassDreams/pseuds/StainedGlassDreams
Summary: "Rev·e·nant: a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead." It seems this has been the definition of their lives so far, and as the ghosts of their pasts arise, it continues to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge Thank You to Loreto Trayano for the incredible artwork accompanying this piece, hope you all enjoy!!
> 
> This fic is a comics/MCU hybrid, taking a lil bit of comic events and nods, and combining them with what I imagine might happen come the aftermath of Avengers 4..

He's been counting the minutes.

The sentry guard comes every 4 hours today, leaving when he takes his 'restroom privileges'.  
Thinking of Ross fuels the only thing he has left, the very thing that the boy king said was consuming him. Vengeance. He's right, of course. You can't bring back the dead, he sees that now. Understands it, now that the fog has cleared, dust and ash settling in the distance.  
They're getting ready to change again, today has two changes.  
He was right. It has consumed him; become a parasite within his body that has settled with the patience and pertinence that comes with being a soldier. The fight that comes with it, being in the trenches. Having your kills haunt your sleep in silent shouts you choke down because the enemy and your team, can't know you feel. You are a machine. He knows that now.

He makes sure the toothpick he has up his sleeve hasn't moved. Hasn't edged from the loose threads he interlocked it in.  
He has acknowledged that he is a soldier. And so he knows now, exactly how to take down the one that kept him in here. The guilty party that needs to pay for his crimes. For his dead.

The guard walks up to his cell to open it, and he calms his heartbeat, looking as calm as he can as his fist balls-  
"WILLIAMS."  
He perks up, getting ready to a defensive stance wondering how the hell the second guard knew. And it isn't until he too, looks towards the second guard that he stops, just as Officer Williams has.  
The officer in the back has, within a matter of minutes, vanished. Turned into a pile of ash and a dropped weapon belt.  
"....W...we-" Williams tries to speak into his walkie, shaken and speechless before his arm begins to disintegrate. "What the hell..." It's his last words.  
He doesn't understand what's happening. He looks down briefly at his hands, waiting for the same thing to happen, whatever pathogen has seeped into the air.

Seconds pass but nothing does happen. And it's then that his training kicks in. He makes quick, before noticing; Williams had already opened the cell.  
Zemo smiles. Fate smiles upon him.


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha stands in front of the window, clutching her sore wrist.  
It's not broken, she's pretty sure. Tries to tilt the axis a little, before suppressing a wince. "Ouch." She says quietly, still rousing the stray cat that seems to have somehow adopted the woman who gives it milk and stale crackers, as her home. How the hell did that ever happen.  
The thing looks up at her with these yellow eyes that melt her every time, this time, curiously meowing.  
"Just a scratch. Nothing to worry about."

Once again, a lie.  
She makes her way to the bedroom, and she once again ignores the quiet. The quiet that's dominated and plagued every major city so that everywhere sounds like the countryside on a Sunday night. Cars, trains, buses, all undercrowded and so not running as much. Ignores the quiet because it sounds too much like how snow would suppress sound from the outside, and even still, the window is open. Letting the cold and snow in, falling gently to the floor.  
"Hey soldier." She'd hope to say to the empty silence, before the sun came in. "Getting better, spider."  
"Ow." She said, breaking back to reality and noticing she had been pressing too hard on the possibly broken wrist.

She looks down on it. She wonders if it was her subconscious reacting, or punishing her.  
No one acknowledges the quiet anymore. Steve doesn't, his eyes more sadder as he throws himself into work. Tony sure as hell won't, though she hears from Pepper he spends the whole night on conference calls with Shuri, or otherwise with Hank Pym.  
No one wants to acknowledge the silence, because it's the reminder they failed. The giant elephant in the room that will not ever leave.

She isn't sure if it was engrained, or just in her nature. But she won't let this disappear.  
She looks down, avoiding the cat's gaze as she lets a private moment of sadness come in again. Come over her as a few tears fall.  
She won't let this disappear, again.

///

She's back in the jungle, that damn silence echoed in her dreams.  
Natasha walks calculated, making sure not to step on any significant shrubbery, blending in with the background to ensure she can hear anything.  
A small stick snaps. She walks toward it, only to find emptiness. Repeats this again and again and again and again for what seems like a thousand times before she finally shouts. "JAMES!!"  
"You need to be more patient." His voice comes from behind, that same worn, warm comfort like a glass of whiskey.  
Relief floods momentarily as she turns, only to find herself back in the sparring room, her body turning as her short bobbed red locks dodge his moves. She sweeps underneath him, taking him out as she lands in a still offensive postion. Karpov adds the performance was worthy.  
He doesn't see the smile that comes from his lips, some secret that only they know of. He outstretches his hand, making his voice cold so no one suspects. "Well done, Widow."  
She's about to take it and now, too warm water hits her body, as she finds herself in his arms. "(You can't sneak up on me.)"  
She breaks the repetition of the dream. "I missed you so much." She says, embracing his body close to hers.  
And it's only then, the landscape changes once more to the Wakandan jungle, where he's holding her. "Me too."  
This moment lasts for all of seconds, before a shot rings out. James looks down, to see a slowly growing shot in his chest. He begins to fall, to reveal Helmut Zemo, holding the gun.  
She cries out-  
And she wakes up. The room shoots back into blurry view as she sits up, putting her hands over her face. Let's reality come back slowly, senses rebooting as she breathes the apartment in. The freshly laundered linen and the cat sleeping on her feet.  
Breathes out, and focus comes back. Lays for a minute, before taking one more breath and carefully slips out from underneath the black small mass, walking to a wall.

It's a map, dotted by multi-colored thumbtacks, pictures attached to some of them. All of one man: a former Sokovian special ops soldier, who escaped during the chaos. One of the hundreds who did when the security systems guarded by officers were vacated suddenly. But this one, this one was hers.  
It became a dangerous pet project, one not sanctioned by Stark, who now occupied General Ross' position. One Steve didn't know about, one she wouldn't let him. The road to finding Zemo was bloody, and she didn't want Steve to dirty his hands. Or at least, that was the lie she told herself, the cover the fact she wanted to spare him any further pain. The trail's been cold up until the morning, when a contact called in saying they saw him in Slovakia.  
She saw him, caught a glimpse, but not before he did. Her wrist ached, as if on queue.  
The defeat has only fueled her determination.

Her phone rings, and not the house. The emergency line, the one no one ever uses unless-  
"Yeah." She says, waiting to see what could possibly possess Tony Stark to call at 4am.  
A pause. "I found a way to bring them back."  
She's already out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

(A few months later)

She turns, expecting a cold bed. Natasha opens her eyes in the slightest, barely conscious surprise, turning to bump into a warm mass occupying her bed. An arm is wrapped around her body, and soft breaths are being exhaled onto her hair.  
It all takes a while to dawn on her, before she lets herself sink back into sleep. They're alive. He made it.  
They're sleeping in their bed, fresh linen on and the alarm off; from what she can tell by the sun hitting James' back, it's 11am.  
She has her eyes closed, head on his chest. "We should get up."  
He breathes in deep, before kissing the top of her head in the softest, quietest of ways. His voice sexily deep with sleep as he replies, "World can wait a few more minutes."  
They rest in those moment, drinking it in before the phone buzzes. "Guess the world can't spare 60 seconds." He says, picking it up.  
"Yeah."  
"...You should come down and see this." Sam's voice comes through, an inflection of worry in it.

///

"-police say they still aren't sure of the exact source of the explosion but are suspecting a possibly bomb."  
There's a firey mass on the TV, a block now consumed by it; old redstone buildings that were declared historical landmarks due to age, now turned to whatever the fire would leave.  
And Bucky knows what Sam meant now, as he watches the apartment block that he and Steve once shared, now crumbling. Something isn't right.  
"That place was a basic fortress." He says, Natasha watching the TV with them.  
A knock on the door comes randomly, oddly, as Sam looks toward the door. Nat walks to it, checking the package drop equipment. The message on the screen deems it safe, as she opens the door to get it. It's a single envelope, large enough for a small postcard as Natasha brings it in.  
The address reads, "Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes" and the look he shares with Nat says what they were thinking. The name that sat in the back of both their minds, like garbage in the attic.  
He opens it, a WWII postcard with the bold text saying "WE WON!", as he turns it over. "The past is burning." It says simply.  
"What the hell does that mean." Sam says.  
He knows, he and Natasha's held breaths being released. His past was coming back to haunt him.

Zemo.


	4. Chapter 4

Natasha waits until after he goes to sleep. Waits until after the hundred briefings, and reports of where or where not Helmut Zemo is, having escaped with some of the tech on the Raft that was left unguarded following Thanos. The inventory was burned from the records by him, and the database itself in Switzerland.   
Slides out of bed carefully, the sheets themselves not even making a sound.

Of course, James takes the blame. Of course, he would feel he alone should bear the weight of the lives lost in the fire of his and Steve's old building. Of course, he would feel the ashes left by Zemo in a twisted breadcrumb trail leading to the end of whatever this is, is just as much his doing as it is Zemo's.  
She takes out the box hidden behind the panel, next to all the things they wouldn't want burned in a fire, kept in a steel case that even Tony's old tech wouldn't open. She walks out to the living room, taking out the map and unfurling it out onto the table.  
But he doesn't understand, as w she won't let him: it's her flames. The forest fire was her doing from chasing a phantom she couldn't catch, let slip. Had she caught Zemo a year ago, this wouldn't have happened.  
Traces her pointer finger over the holes, dotted with colors like lurid halos, trying to find a pattern.

The pattern she could establish was he was hitting underground HYDRA centers, pre-KGB. The bunkers themselves were so underground, they weren't even listed in the data mining, which resulted in following one step behind Helmut's tracks. But she knows, covert wouldn't leave anything they didn't want you to find.  
Remembers the chilly draft of a Yetkaterinberg facility as she tried to go in a backdoor, to a program only the Widow agents were allowed in case of emergency.  
The network in flashing green letters of the ancient technology showed that standard ops except for one. "GH-0001: DIRECTIVE  
ESCORT ORIGINAL SIN TO BERLIN FACILITY FROM YEKATERINBERG FOR EXAM  
CLASS 1 IMPORTANCE."  
There was nothing special about the description, except that the origin code didn't exist.

Runs her fingers over Poland.

She traced the code back to the other bunkers and finally it ended in a small, formerly HYDRA occupied ruin; too littered with the sins and smell of war and it's casualties. The world is quiet, too quiet as the snow falls, and the sound of everything is muted. She should've known it was a damn trap.  
A shot grazed her shoulder, the angle coming from one of the burned houses. She ran for cover, shooting at the window she thought it came from. Her breaths are as amplified as they are isolated, like yelling into a glass jar your head is stuck in.  
"Turn back, Ms. Romanoff." she hears the ragged voice of her target. "You have no need to get involved in this."  
She presses her back against the decrepit chimney before she fires two more shots.  
"Don't you think the world has lost enough?"  
She's already on the other end, tuck and rolled to another house in the square as a flag glitters somewhere. Natasha looks where the figure was before she feels a kick to the back of her knees, sending her downward as she sees the quick shadow of a pistol coming down; she sweepkicks from behind, getting up to take the advantage. Helmut fires again as she punches his stomach, raising her leg to kick him in the face before she hears a knife too late, the blade getting her thigh as he runs.  
He fires seemingly at the sky and it's then that she turns, seeing an explosive placed on a decaying clock tower, the building collapsing.  
And as the dust settles, he's gone. The bunker is blown to pieces this time, reducing all computers to sunken and twisted metal.

The trail went cold, and she was forced to give up. And she knows, she's responsible for this. Not him.  
"Pretty detailed road trip."  
She turns, James' figure behind her and she knows she's caught.  
".....These are all HYDRA bases. The ones no one really used."  
"It should've been."  
He looks at her. "What happened while I was gone?"  
"Prison escapes. The team went after that. I hunted for the thing that I knew would come back later."  
James looked at her with concern and care.  
"I lost him, there. I was chasing a code that the Red Room never used, but it was in a file." She showed him the print-out of it and his looks went from caring to serious; and she knew he was rifling through his memories. "What?"  
"It's a HYDRA mission. Highest security measures."  
"Any idea what it is?"  
He still is searching, and she gets worried of him going too far back.  
"....Not really."  
She looks at the maps again before James wraps his arm around her gently. "I'm just glad you're okay."  
"Doubt me?" She says playfully.  
"Never. Zemo's something else though. We still don't know everything he does."  
"We could've." She says, biting the edge of her lip, thinking of it again. "If I had caught him."  
"Hey." He says, turning her to him, those eyes she had missed for so long, looking at her as if she was a star from the sky. "That's not your fault."  
"Feels like it."  
He shakes his head. "We'll get him. Together. Double trouble."  
"....How do you do that?"  
"What?"  
"Make everything feel like it's going to be okay."  
"Nah. That's you." They kiss for a few moments, as she clears the table and the maps fall to the floor.

God, she missed this.


	5. Chapter 5

A man with a white face, a fake smile and blue suit.  
"No."  
Woman, middle aged, reddish-brown hair-  
"Go forward."  
Early 30's with shoulder length hair, blonde.  
The screen continues flashing from face to face for a few more moments, resembling something like Bucky's mind in Bucharest all those years ago; an entanglement of images that have both nothing and everything to do with each other. He's been asked to look at the faces of those that Zemo left in his wake to see if he recognized anyone, as a way to maybe pinpoint where he would be going next. The screen goes blank after the last image of a man in a bad crew cut.  
"That's a dead end then." Maria says as she swipes off the hologram displaying them.  
"He's only leaving the clues he wants us to find." Natasha said.  
"Which was to be expected."  
"This guy's a loose end, one that doesn't want to be tied up." Sam adds, elbows on the table and leaning in.  
"We have two leads so far, one in Vienna and the other in Siberia. Sam, I'm sending you to Germany. Natasha, you'll take the latter."  
"What about me?"  
Maria sighs. "I'm sorry, but I'm ordering you to sit this one out, Barnes."  
"Wh-"  
"We don't know what he's planning. Any of the leads could be a trap to lure you into them, and wait for you to bite the bait."  
"She's right." Natasha says, looking directly into his eyes. "He's hitting your past, James. He's waiting for you to slip up, or act out. We need to play this as close to the chest until we can figure out his end game." All the while, her gaze added to it: 'I know this is frustrating. Be patient.'  
He surveys the room before sighing. "Fine."  
They all get up, Sam coming by first and gripping Bucky's shoulder. "Besides, your old ass would just slow me down." They laugh before he walks out. "We'll be fine."  
Natasha brushes his fingers past his resting hand. "I'll be back."  
"I know."  
She kisses him before she leaves. "Tell her I said hi."  
"Of course."

It's Thursday.

/////

The room is ordinary, a window in the corner and a door to the side, except that there were a number of potted plants. Some more exotic birds of paradise, lillies or orchids; with some smaller varieties of sunflowers and petunias.  
He lays out his cards, the things themselves old and dirt seeped into them. "Flush."  
She lays hers down. "Three of a kind."  
"Damn, when'd you get so good at this?"  
"After you left, I rummaged through your room. I tried sewing with Ma but she said Mrs. Gershwin upstairs could've done better."   
They laughed as a nurse came in, red hair and freckled. "Excuse me, Mrs. Proctor?"  
"I told you dear, call me Rebecca, I haven't been called Mrs. Proctor since I taught Sunday school."  
"Sorry, of course. I brought you your pills for today."  
"Anything new?" Bucky asks as Becca takes the paper cup.  
"Ummm..." The nurse looks momentarily flustered. "No, I don't think so."  
"Excuse him Cinthya, he always gets all the girls flustered."  
The nurse giggles as she leaves, Bucky gets Rebecca a glass of water.  
As she takes the pills, she looks at him. "If you say sorry again Jamie, so help me, I'll get right outta this bed and kick you."  
"God, Becca, thought I taught you better manners than that."  
"Who said I listened?" She smirks, as Bucky gets his jacket, visiting hours drawing to a close. He kisses her on the forehead. "Love you, Becks."  
"Love you too."  
He's about to close the door before she calls out. "Oh! Tell Steve I said hello, will you? And that I'd like him to come by."  
"Course." He tries to smile as he closes the door.

He waits until the lock clicks on the handle before he sighs. The fresh wound that he thinks will never truly ever seal, tears open again. It's only been a month, and it feels like only a few days ago.  
He ha a few hours until the next briefing, might as well open it up further.


	6. Chapter 6

The grave is an ordinary one.

It's the same as every other gravestone in Arlington, accompanied by the same type of booming eerie quiet that comes only in graveyards and tending to do the wounded in the battlefield, an acknowledgement to the whispering dead. It took them everything they had to fight for a regular stone, rather than some large, commemorative memorial. He never wanted that.  
"Steven G. Rogers  
'Do not withhold good, when it is in your power to do it.'  
1918-2019"

You talk morbidly on the field. He remembers one night, speaking with a few of Commandoes as Dugan declared, drunk on Scottish whiskey they had found in a bar, "On my gravestone gents, I want "Dum-Dum Dugan! The greatest mustachioed hunk to live."  
"Yeah, along with those daft wrestling adverts." Falsworth said as they laughed.  
"Oh yeah? And what would you have?"  
"Just something simple. My name, birthrate; name of my daughter and wife. Nothing deliberate."  
Dugan pointed to Bucky. "How about you, Sarge?"  
He downed his last glass. "Punk kid from Brooklyn."  
"And you, Cap? Big ol' shield for the ladies?" He laughs heartily.  
Steve shakes his head. "No, no shields. Just my name."  
"You're Captain-freaking-America! Can't go with simple shit like that! Especially looking like THAT!"  
He smiles. "I'm still the same, just...bigger."  
"I can attest to that. He's still the same ol Steven Rogers. Born idiot doing the right thing."

He comes back, hard and abrupt to reality. Which is, Steve's gone. There's no magic cure this time, no spell. Just the stark reality that Steven Rogers is gone.  
He kneels to touch the stone, keeping his hand on the cold granite for a moment before getting up. "Becca wanted to me say hi. Figured I should too." He stands in silence for a moment, the gravity hitting him more than he expected. He sighs, sitting down beside the stone. "Zemo's back. Can't do anything because he might be setting up traps. He burned down that crumbling building excuse of an apartment we had. HYDRA bases, the works." He pauses, as if waiting to hear Steve's omnipresent voice. "And I'm fighting to try and not be you. To not rush in, do somethting stupid." He chuckles. The wind rustles against the trees, against the rows and rows of soldiers around them. "I wish you rubbed off your stupid on me a little. It'd make this easier." He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. A month ago, he'd have punched the granite. Asked why, in the silence and in that, the answer would have been obvious. Because he wanted to do the right thing.  
"God, I wish you were here."

The whispering dead go on for a little more, before the wind overtakes them, Bucky waiting for a few more moments before leaving, his hand touching the stone again.

///

He takes the long way back home, through the alleyways and back streets; as if looking for a fight.  
He has ghosts the size of the Sears Tower, any one of which Zemo could be going after.  
He hops over a tall fence, keeping a light jog pace to make the next one.  
He has an intent, an end goal to reprimand him for the things he's done. And a part of him doesn't blame him, understands it and almost is tempted to welcome it. The sickly sweet part of his mind that he indulged much more in Romania, just seeking an end to it. The justice the ghosts deserve.  
He hears kids playing in the side street, as they run past him, yelling as they chase each other for tag.  
Now? Now, he wants to fight. Fight for Steve's honor, for everything he died for. For the sanctuary he and Nat built.  
Speaking of. His phone vibrates as he makes his way to another side street. Natalia's name comes up: "Hotel swanky. Reminds me of Jakarta. ;) Try not to stay inside your head too much. -N.  
P.S. Don't forget to leave out that special milk for Liho."  
He smiles. "Got it. Be careful." He texts back. Bucky almost has it back in his pocket before it vibrates again, this time displaying Shuri's name. "Hiii! Wanna come by and check out the new facility? Few blocks from you, in Queens."  
Figures why not.


	7. Chapter 7

The building is innocuous on the outside. It looks like any normal office building in the city.  
Inside however

The orange walls stretch two floors high to meet a ceiling that has traditional Wakandan tapestries hanging from the rafters, one for each tribe with the motto in the language underneath each. The reception desk is circular, with half of an egg dome 10 or so feet above it, all with a metallic sounding smooth white floor.  
A few Dora Milaje come to greet him, one he recognizes as Ayo. "White Wolf."  
"Nice to see you again."  
She slams her spear down, signaling the other Dora to be relieved. "It has been a while. The princess is waiting for you in the lab."  
He walks with them to the elevator, though as they press the button, it's not even a few seconds before they get to the 20th floor. "It's new!"  
He hears Shuri as the doors open, wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt with the sleeves torn off, yellow 70's text reading "Coachella" on the front. "I modified molecular technology to compress within a shaft, making a sort of teleporter for a limited area. Basically, no more cables, no risk of crashing due to anti-gravity." She walks up, embracing Bucky. "It is good to see you again, Sergeant Barnes."  
"And I've told you that name makes me feel 100 years old."  
"Well first, you are. And second, you should be proud of your achievements. Much better than Bucky, I feel."  
"How's the King?" He asks as they sit in the white sofa where a few books are placed.  
"Good. He's making relations with more of the enhanced communities that Ms. Danvers pointed out. Someone named...Ororo, I believe? Rather clever woman."  
"And you?"  
"Enhancing the outreach centers. We are giving more and more opportunities to the communities that would otherwise not be helped, it makes me happy, others finding what we can do. What they can do. And America is interesting. Starbucks, also addictive."  
"It's nice. I wish I'dve stopped by sooner."  
"Ms. Romanoff thought you'd like it."  
"Huh?"  
"She called me a little while ago. Said she didn't want you to be alone tonight, and get caught up in your head."  
He sighs, hiding a soft smile. "She always knows."  
"How are you?" Shuri asks.  
"Fine, since the last check-"  
She pokes his chest. "I meant, in here."  
They share a look, and he knows he can't hide anything from her.  
He sighs, silence hovering for a while, in unison with the slow drone of the technology beside them. "...I'm scared." He says quietly, the words slipping from his lips almost of their own accord as he stares into a middle space."For the first time in as long as I can remember...I'm scared." He looks back at Shuri.  
"Because of Zemo?"  
"Because I have something to lose." He loses himself in the thoughts that he has, unwillingly and stubborn, buried himself under. "Steve and I...we'd always just throw ourselves into danger, without a second thought. Steve is Steve, there wasn't a thought to not keep pushing. Keep fighting." He looks down at his hands. "I thought I was in it for my Dad. Uphold my family's tradition. After Azzano... I threw myself into it. Because I didn't know how much of me was left. Just for it to be over." He whispered the last sentence, as it tumbled out.  
"Ms. Romanoff changed that."  
He nods, still looking into the middle space, which as far as he knows, is a slideshow. "He's going after my past. If anything happened to her because of me.." He puts away the thinking that's kept him up at night since this nightmare started.  
She smiles. "She worries about you. The same way you worry about her. And there isn't a reason." She leans back. "I remember reading a book from your histories, from the mythology books. My Mother would read them to me as bedtime stories. One, always stuck with me.  
"You know of Zeus, right? It was said humans were once fearsome beasts; four legs, four arms, two heads. He became afraid of the power they would wield, that it would challenge his own. So he separated each of the creatures into two. That's where the idea of soulmates comes from, I believe." She takes his hand. "You both will be fine, because you are two of the same half. The whole world could move, and you would not quiver, as long as you are by each other's side."  
"...Thank You...usisi."  
Shuri smiles wide. "You've been practicing, White Wolf! I see you, I see you." She pushes him playfully, and he smiles for the first time since this started.  
"I'm gonna head home. Get some rest."  
"You're more than welcome to stay here, you know."  
"I know. Thank You again."  
"Oookay then. Ayo will see you out. Because of traditional rules, I can't send any of the Dora with you. However, four of our converts are in your building until this passe-you can't say no to this. It isn't just coming from me, it's from T'Challa. As far as we are concerned...you're Wakandan." She pokes his chest again. "In there."  
He embraces her tightly, and suddenly, feels hope again.


	8. Chapter 8

It's a boring desk job.

He checks the clock again, waiting for the hour hand to hit the awkward position it does to indicate his clock-out from this place.  
He was told this was a promotion, and the more he stays down here in this hell-hole, the more he realizes it was a damn lie. He just stays down in this basement level and guards, cabinets. Fucking cabinets. That he, 'under no circumstances, is to open to anyone except those with Alpha clearance'.

His chair creaks as he edges out of it, checking the dark corner for any of his bosses. No one.   
He puts his boots on the mahogany table, leaning back as he takes our a cigarette from his jacket pocket. Exhales it slowly, freeing the stress from every inch of him. It's not even that it's weird, a whole floor of cabinets with spotlight on each of them like a glorified furniture showroom, no; it's that it doesn't feel right. Every time he comes down here, he feels there's something in here with him and he hates it. Like living with ghosts, which he amuses is essentially what it is.  
He inhales, the paper crisping from the ash. "Like a goddamn cemeter-"

He feels something sharp at his throat, and a panic of failure comes over him, learning too late that the suspicion was not paranoia but heightened awareness.  
"I don't mind killing you. Adding another HYDRA scum in the heap wouldn't be something I'd mind."  
Feels his pulse quicken against his throat.  
"Fortunately for you, the only way these cabinets open is with a living retina."  
"Why the hell would you want anything in here? These are all burned projects, HYDRA doesn't leave no goddamn evidence."  
He walks with him, this man with an accent he can't yet place. "You weren't protecting secrets, Corporal. Almost every cabinet in here is just filled with empty paper. I know, because I've been checking." They walked over to A-5. "Every one here, except this."  
The man forces him to open it, retina scan and pulse indicator on the right hand side before he opens the middle drawer, a single folder inside.

The last thing he sees before the bang that comes from the man's weapon, drawn and fired without even a glance at him, is the reason only then, does he realize how wrong his assumption was.

A picture of a young girl, with red hair, dimples and haunting eyes. The file name reading, "SCHMITT, SINTHIYA"


	9. Chapter 9

"Revenant." He says the world like he's turning over a coin on his fingers.  
He looks through the pictures with Hill, the word etched onto the top of the many cabinets with a knife. He knows he's doing a shitty job of hiding what he's feeling because Nat is sitting with her boots on the table, her eyes on him.  
"It's definitely him. The kills, the MO. It all fits."  
It does. Everything about it makes him remember the facility, the memory of which has been hiding in the back of his head as he was only there maybe once, but there's this itch he hasn't been able to satisfy, something that keeps urging him, telling him he's missing something. Something important.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Yeah. But something doesn't fit. It's too..."  
"Too easy." Nat says, looking at the table. She looks up at him and he sees, inexplicably, a flash of regret in them and on her face before she looks back into space again.  
"Was there anything else?"  
"One of the guards had this in his hand."  
It was a leaf.  
"The hell?"  
She taps the console. "It's from a common oak tree. No special breed, no traces of anything." The oak coming up beside the dead man, a cigarette pack coming out of his jacket pocket and an execution style bullet hole in his head.  
"What was the name of the guard?"  
"John Proctor."

It hits all too quickly as his stomach drops as many stories as the Empire State building. How he didn't catch this sooner. "Becca."  
"What?" Nat says, as Bucky's already halfway out the door.  
"Becca, he's going after Becca."

////

He drives the bike at 85 and it still isn't fast enough, running into the home as the nurses shouted after him, opening the door to find Becca asleep in her bed.  
The plants all in their rightful positions, and the window still closed.  
"The hel-"  
And its the last thing he speaks, before a giant, surging voltage comes from the back of his leg and up to his neck, falling to the ground, as he hears heels come from behind the door. "Jesus, didn't they teach you corners in the Army? Thought the mighty Winter Soldier would be easier to catch than this."  
His vision begins to swim as she does it again, looking up to see a shaking, blurred image of the nurse from days before. "Oh honey pie... I didn't lie. My name is Sinthya. But my friends, they call me Sin." She smiles evilly, before it all goes black.


	10. Chapter 10

The room smells damp. For one split moment, that eerie feeling he buried deep under a crevice comes back; that feeling of being caught and inescapable.  
His wrists are caught and it embeds for the most fleeting of moments before reality comes back.  
"Well well. Toy soldier is up. Helmut." A distant voice calls out and he rallys himself out of the pain.  
"How long has it been?"  
Bucky doesn't even need to, the voice making something vibrate in his core, like a broken string as his vision comes back in a swallow; Helmut Zemo's tall and now slightly paled and skinnier figure comes back. "6 years? Though, it feels like so much more." He descends a small set of steps that lead into the circular imprint Bucky is being held in, the whole room appearing to be some kind of underground basement, dimly lit and smelling of sitting water. "And yet, you haven't changed."  
He watches his movements, watches Sin as she fiddles with something on the computer in the back wall.  
"How was the box? Shocks don't fuck around, huh?" Bucky replies.  
He chuckles. "Just as mouthy as your Captain, aren't you? But so much more flawed."  
Bucky's eyes flare as he tries to control it.  
"Ah....yes. And there it is. The wound that is still raw." He leans in. "How is that box, Sergeant Barnes? The shock doesn't fuck around? Doesn't it?"  
His breathing gets heavier in the slightest as Zemo walks around. "That loss... You don't forget it."  
"Can we cut the crap and get to it, Helmut? This shit is gonna take a while." Sin says, wearing a lab coat.  
"Just as brash as your Father, aren't you?"  
"I know not to monologue. Kinda gets you fucked over." She says, holding a syringe.  
"I'm going to explain why, in just a sentence. Because you won't remember it anyway. If vengeance consumed me, as your boy king friend said, it is my duty to make sure others are not as well. To give them justice."  
Sin smiles, as that feeling of dread comes again, churning from his gut with nausea as he tries to wrench his arm from the cuffs, finding his left has been disengaged, furiously trying to get it back online.  
She walks over to his ear, whispering. "Hail, HYDRA."  
She whispers another word, and the floodwater comes back, burying him.


	11. Chapter 11

"What do you mean gone?"  
"We lost the trail. Whoever grabbed him at the hospital, reset any tracker we had on Barnes."  
"Wakanda called, they have their own tech scouring any nearby areas and Wilson is going on a fly- Nat-"  
"They aren't going to find him in time, Hill."  
"You'll be playing directly into Zemo's hands, give it time-"  
"Even you don't believe we have that."  
Maria locks into her eyes, sighing. "No, I don't. But for your own safety, I'm asking you... Don't do it."  
"You know I can't."  
".....I know."  
Natasha walks out the door.

One of Bucky's bikes is in the garage, she leaves her own to ride his.  
There's something you learn.  
The bike purrs, as she revs the engine, speeding out of the western exit.  
Something you take with you after things are wrenched from your grasp. over and over and over again.  
She takes the off ramp to Arlington, signaling into the graveyard.  
You learn that there are some things that you play as close to the cuff as you can.  
She walks over to a willow tree in the rain, a branch that hangs over a grave of a man that isn't dead. A revenant. Carves out a piece of wood right under a teenage carving of a heart to reveal a hollow, a slow blinking red light blips out of the dark, attached to a USB stick sized metal rod.  
Because in case something is ever lost again.... It won't be.  
Natasha takes it out, making sure it wasn't tampered before she clicks the button on it's side.

Somewhere, James' bike keys make the slightest of vibrations, turning on the emergency beacon.  
Her emergency phone chimes quietly.  
"I'm coming, James."

///  
"Her name is Cynthia Schmidt. No known birth parents, or name." Hill's voice comes in.  
She signals, swerving in between the cars.  
"So, a ghost."  
"No." Nat turns, edging further into the industrialized part of the city as she sees the pop-up in her glasses. "Your intel opened up a passage, into a German sperm bank, operated by HYDRA."  
It clicks, as Natasha feels a pitfall in her stomach. "Schmidt."  
"....The same. That"s all the information I have."  
"Have, or can give?"  
"Both. Stay safe." The line clicks.  
And it makes sense. A faint memory comes back to her, of Ivan speaking of something. "The lost heirloom of HYDRA has been found."  
"What the hell do you mean, Colonel?"  
"Nothing that we won't be able to coerce something from them in exchange."  
The daughter of the Red Skull. And the one person who might be able to break James.  
"Hang in there."

/////

He's in a room. Becca's, as the walls have small papers with drawings on them and flowery printed curtains handed down from his grandmother.  
The floorboards creak in the same familiar way, as he turns toward a sound, seeing her on the floor. "Come draw with me, Jamie?"  
He kneels down, the only colors in his box being red, as a voice comes from somewhere. 'You abandoned her, Barnes.'  
His hands are dirtied red, as the floor changes to a tiled one; an upscale hotel and a finished target is on the ground.  
'Left her to finish the demons you couldn't get out of your head after the war.'  
He turns, Steve's back to him. Bucky calls out as Steve turns, his face looking solemn. "How could you, Buck? Turn your back on us, like that?"  
'So you could surpass your brother.'  
His hand has a gun that's pointed to Steve-

"NO." His voice echoes in the circular chamber, as his breaths grow heavy, his head falling down as he mutters it again, sweat falling off his forehead.  
"You said this would work."  
She flicks through a notebook. "And I told you the damn thing would take time. Did you find me just to play God, or an impatient deity?"  
"I found you because you're the only one capable of undoing whatever that girl did." Zemo responds, looking at Bucky's figure. "So I can show the world....what he really is."  
Sin scoffs.  
"A problem, Cinthya?"  
"Yeah. The fact your petty ass wants to control him just to...what? Commit one more crime and have the government take him in?" She injects Bucky again with the substance, as his breaths start to regulate. "He was Father's prize with Zola. And you wanna play him as a one hit wonder when he could hit the charts."  
"And that worked out so well for HYDRA."  
A scalpel slides out into her palm. "Careful dear. I am Herr Schmidt's daughter still. And just as mad." She pushes it back in, as Zemo scoffs.  
"You want justice, right? Well, that takes time. Figuring out what the false memory was that Arnim planted....edging it out." She closes the book. "Think I've been playing this wrong. ....It would be a happy memory. ...Something that the Wakandans would have missed." Her eyes flash an idea. "And I know just where to look." Sin takes Bucky's face and whispers into his ear. "Let's remember Russia."


	12. Chapter 12

The tracker pings stronger, as she puts away the device.  
James' tracker leads here; a shut down power plant supposedly built in 1999, but the plans don't exist officially. It's a cover for a base they never located, the burnt out ruins concealing what she would be expecting. Schmidt's personal guard that never left her from birth, and whatever traps Helmut laid. All of which, she can handle. The thing that's worrying her most, is if she's in time.  
"How's back-up looking, Sam?"  
"30 minutes."  
"I- "  
"-can't wait that long, I know. Redwing will do the rest for you."  
A hovering flat drone appears beside her.  
"God, you love flaunting that round, don't you?"  
"He's my pet." There's a pause before Sam's voice comes back on com. "Be careful, Nat."  
"Always."  
"There's some thermal detector in entrance.... And all other routes."  
She does a running start, getting ready to scale some of the rubble.  
"Through the roof then."

/////

The soldier's eyes blink. His breaths are calm, as a feeling in the back of his mind tells him none of it is real. To wake up.  
A woman in front of him is smirking as a man who looks familiar is looking at him up and down. "[Soldier?]  
"[Ready to comply.]" The words fall automatic, without question or hesitation.  
"There you are. One broken toy soldier."  
"What is your name?"  
"....None."  
"....Who is Natasha Romanoff to you?"  
"No one." His brain registers a pause as the feeling overcomes him again in an inexplicable wave.  
"Well, speak of the devil." Sin says, pointing to the monitor and seeing Natasha's figure on it, taking down the guards. "Perfect for a test-run."  
Zemo points to them. "[Let's test your loyalty, Soldier. She is your target. Eliminate her.]"  
He leaves wordlessly, the mission in mind.

All the while, his heart is screaming to a wall that does not understand.

///

The orange lit factory hallway echoes from the last thud of Natasha's boot, as the man goes down, a knife gash on his side. She pants, checking the man's gun and finding the chamber empty.  
Redwing, as much as hates to admit, has been handy, alerting of her of anyone coming. She hears it before Sam's voice comes over. "Disengage Redwing."  
"N-" Is all she hears before she turns off the com.

Natasha stands, looking over her shoulder. "So... Are you gonna hide all night? Or are you going to do this?" And she knows when to dodge, because it feels familiar in all the worst ways.  
He attempts to land a punch before turning to kick and she's letting familiarity take over, this dance she hadn't had to do in so many years. The one he helped refine, and the Red Room reinforced. Dodges, punches, blows, all of it in an effort just to wear him down, catch him off guard.  
He catches one of her punches as he tries to pin her down, flipping him over. "(You can recognize me. C'mon.)" He seems to pause at the slightest hesitation, the window she's looking for as she hit him with the emptied out gun over the head, James groaning from the blow. She hits him again as he's out momentarily, a voice coming from the loudspeakers. "You honestly think you can take him? He has orders to kill you, Ms. Romanoff." The voice is calm, determined and still as arresting as it was in Vienna. "Fitting end, isn't it? That the toy soldier ends the broken ballerina?"  
It distracts her, as Bucky comes from behind, his left arm wrapped around her throat in a sleeper hold. She gasps, trying to free herself, attack any part of him. Her vision is going spotty and all she can think to do is the longest shot she has: she takes one hand, and puts it on his cheek. "I know you're in there. Fight it." She says, her voice hoarse.

And the pressure alleviates. She takes gulps of air as she gets let down, turning to see James' face twisted in confusion and realization before wincing as his hand goes to his head.  
"[Soldier! Finish the job, now!]"  
James takes another gun from nearby, and Odessa flashes back into her vision, this same stance as she stays still. "James. I was in there too, so I know you can fight this. I know you can."  
"FINISH IT."  
He's still fighting, she can see it as he falls to his knees.  
"SHOOT!"  
A shot rings out and there's a wound on his side, blood coming out of the shot near the abdomen.  
"James." She walks over to him, as she applies pressure on the wound. "You idiot.."  
"D-don't, don't. I don't trust-"  
"I trust you." She sees a blurred figure run as Redwing emits a taser, stopping them in their tracks, as she hears multiple footfalls, coming from the reinforcements. "I trust you."


	13. Chapter 13

The monitor beeps softer than the machines she's used to hearing, as the figure beside her remains motionless.  
The wound wasn't fatal, and that wasn't the source of concern.

They flew him back to Wakanda after Shuri was told what happened. After feeling like an eternity in the room adjacent to Shuri's lab, the princess came out, her face equal parts calm and somber.  
"....He's stable. But I'm trying to see if the damage extended anywhere else."  
"What do you mean."  
Shuri touched the paper thin pad, as a hologram emerged from the ceiling. "However they did this, it was attached to a false memory of you both. I...I'm trying to make sure the connection didn't attach itself to any other memories. If it were to, there is a risk that the others might have been tainted."  
"What would that mean?"  
"It would mean, if it did, Sergeant Barnes would have to go back under cryofreeze so he would not lose any memories of your relationship, if there were any lost, or corrupted. I'm doing everything I can to make sure it doesn't come to that. The scan should be complete within the day."  
Everything felt hollow in that moment. As if the world were put into a vacuumed tube, all sound devoid and gone.  
"....Can I see him?" She says, her voice trying to be kept as calm as possible.  
"You can."

And so she found herself here, sitting next to James and wondering if these past months were just the inevitable break of a dream that they were told, they were not allowed to have. And the one they hoped they'd break from.  
She holds his hand in her own. Feeling his fingertips, and his palm in her thumb.  
She finally speaks, her heart unable to stay silent. "I looked for you. Ever since Moscow. I knew there wasn't a chance, but I tried anyway." She pauses again, feeling his pulse. "And you want to know something I've never told anyone, not even myself?"  
His breathing is rhythmic, face relaxed and in recovery.  
"I put myself on that Odessa mission because I knew you'd be there. That it was my only chance to get you back. I hesitated when I saw you...After all those years..." Natasha pauses again. "So I asked the only thing I could. If you recognized me. When you lowered the gun from my head to my waist... I knew you were still in there."  
She holds back the emotion she'd been hiding, away in the compartment neither of them acknowledge: that fear of loss you never speak aloud, in fear of waking the monster that might devour them and their fear realized. "So...you can't leave. ...Not when I just got you back."

It hangs in the air like a cloud, as she continues to hold his hand.  
Until she feels a pressure coming from his hand. She waits, her fingertips touching in the slightest way, making sure it wasn't a reflex.  
James hand holds hers as she smiles, holding back a tear.


	14. Epilogue

There are petals in a small flowerpot filled with water, as droplets fall into it.  
"You planted all these, Becca?" The redhaired woman asks, shafts of lights coming from strategic cracks in the wood above.  
"Mhmm. That lower shelf there is from Kim and Jill, but these are mine." Becca replies, trimming dead branches from an older looking flower. "Here, try." Gentle, wizened hands give small hedge clippers to the woman; as she takes it, Becca's hand closes around the other gently, as she looks up at her. "Natasha, right? You'll forgive me, dear."  
"No, that's right." Nat smiles, as she grasps Becca's hands back, setting the clippers down.  
"You know...Jaime built this by himself. Said he wanted somewhere I could have a garden. When we were children, we couldn't have a garden, living in the city. So, this." She smiles, looking around at the modest greenhouse. "He's always been that way. So busy caring for others that he forgets himself. He listens to you." She nods. "Please...look after him."  
"I always do."  
Becca smiles, kissing her hand. "Now, let's trim a bit, hmm?"

////

She gets on the bike, wrapping her arms around a leather jacket clad figure, who says "Thanks for coming."  
"Of course." She smiles.  
"She likes you, you know."  
"She told me to look after your ass."  
"Did she?"  
"Mhmm. Think I'm doing an okay job so far."  
James turns, kissing her. "Wouldn't be here without you."  
He revs the engine. "Ready?"  
"Always!"

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize, my life has been crazy lately, and after posting as drafts for the first time in a while, then posting all at once, somehow the chapters became seriously mixed up.  
> The chapters are now all in chronological order, and I deeply apologize for the mix-up....


End file.
